A Smart Start

Wednesday January 14th, 2009 - St. Ignace, MI

One of the wiser choices I’ve made so far this new year was making the 504 mile scoot up here to the U.P. yesterday instead of today. The booker said they’d put us up for free if we wanted to do that so as to make sure we’d be here in plenty of time. I took them up on it and today I was SO glad I did. I was relaxed all day and heard it was nasty back home.

We didn’t have one snowflake all the way up here yesterday even though I left a bit late and we got up here at around 11pm. I rode with Mark Shilobrit from Milwaukee and he’s a licensed airline pilot. He agreed it would be smarter if we gave ourselves the cushion.

Driving 500 miles in any weather and having to perform that night isn’t something I am looking forward to ever doing again. It’s not saying I wont do it but I really don’t want to if I can avoid it. There comes a time in a performer’s life when that totally loses it’s luster and I am totally there. Being able to relax today and even get some work done felt great.

Today I worked on building up my team for comedy classes at Zanies in Chicago. I will offer a couple of free classes at the end of the month to reestablish myself in the teaching game and let potential students sample my style. Whenever we did free classes in the past it produced a new crop of paying students and it also really added to the mailing list too.

My goal is to take the classes farther than I ever have and part of that will be morphing into different arenas. I still love to teach at Zanies and hope to for a long time to come but I would also like to expand to continuing education departments of universities and many new places nobody has tried before. I’d love to expand into prisons, hospitals, wherever.

I received an email from Linda Perret wanting t finalize a deal to do an online course of study with her and I’m thrilled about that. Teaming up with Gene Perret’s reputation is an unbelievable credit for me and will earn respect from anyone who understands comedy. It means a lot to be in the same sentence with one of the best comedy writers of all time.

I’m not putting myself in that category by a long shot but being associated with Gene on any project is instant credibility for me. He teaches a writing course while mine goes into the entire process of becoming a comedian from ground zero. I know I can help people on the start of their journey into the comedy jungle. I have many hard earned lessons learned.

Tonight’s show was actually very fun. There weren’t that many people in the joint but it was extra cold and nobody wondered why. The whole casino was a little sparse but those who did dare to come out were rewarded with a rocking show. Mark opened well and was very loose and easy and I went up and brought my energy and got in a nice solid groove.

I’ve been whining lately about coming too far for too little money. This was a long haul too but I did it to pay my bills next month. This gig pays better than the runs to Minnesota so I won’t bitch because it made financial sense. I took this for the money but I still didn’t shirk my duties on the show. I gave those who came my very best plus I did some work.